Marc Lynch is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, where he is the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and of the Project on Middle East Political Science. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He is the author of The Arab Uprising (March 2012, PublicAffairs).

He publishes frequently on the politics of the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Arab media and information technology, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Islamist movements.

Israel’s elections? A victory for the “extremist right” and relegated to the second tier… next to French President Sarkozy’s visit to Baghdad, where Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki declares the “end of the era of American pressure.”

Discuss.

UPDATE: It’s telling that very few American media outlets appear to have even noticed the Chinese President’s meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I couldn’t find even a mention in the New York Times or the Washington Post or CNN.com. It doesn’t even make our own Foreign Policy Passport morning roundup. Maybe Ambassador to Iraq-designate Christopher Hill’s Asian experience will prove useful and relevant after all…